The present invention relates generally to "wood-type" golf club heads which are molded of one of a number of metals such as steel or aluminum and, more particularly, to apparatus for bending the hosels of such golf club heads to adjust their lie and face angles for fitting a golf club to an individual golfer. These "wood-type" metal golf club heads will be referred to herein as metal wood golf club heads.
Custom fitting golf clubs can substantially improve a golfer's performance by adjusting characteristics of the clubs to take advantage of or compensate for intrinsic characteristics of a golfer's swing. For example, a series of apparently identical golf clubs can be made to perform in a range of differing manners by selecting a corresponding range of face angles for the clubs. For a series of identical clubs with the same loft, as the face angle is opened, moved toward an open (slice) face angle, the clubs will hit the ball progressively lower than the clubs preceding it in the series which have less open or more closed (hook) face angles.
The lie and face angle of a wood-type golf club having a wood head can be defined by selecting the drill angle on the hosel or neck of the wood head. The neck is then turned in alignment with the drilled hole. Unfortunately, for metal wood golf club heads, drilling and turning operations to determine the face angle and possibly the lie angle are impractical. While it would be possible to form a variety of metal wood heads having varying lie angles and varying face angles, the mold costs and inventory problems are prohibitive. Accordingly, alternate approaches have been used.
In one approach disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,804,184, which is assigned to the assignee of the present application and incorporated herein by reference, runners are formed on the soles of the metal wood heads. The runners are ground down to select lie and/or face angles for clubs using the heads. With improvements in currently available metal wood golf club heads, it is also now possible to bend the hosels of these club heads to select lie and/or face angle.
For hosel bending, the club heads must be securely clamped in a stable position. The hosel is then engaged by a bending tool and force is applied via the bending tool to bend the hosel as desired. Unfortunately, problems are frequently encountered when the hosels of metal wood club heads are bent using known bending apparatus. In particular, metal wood golf club heads have thin wall thickness due to the weight limitations for these clubs and often dent or crush when being clamped for hosel bending operations. Further, the application of a bending tool to the hosels of metal wood golf club heads can mar the heads during the bending operation.
It is thus apparent that there is a need for improved apparatus for bending the hosels of metal wood golf club heads to adjust the lie and face angles of the club heads with reduced risk of denting, crushing and marring the club heads during the bending operation.